Berit Johnsen is a Research Professor at the University College of
Norwegian Correctional Service. She has been involved in research
that shows the benefit of small-scaled prisons on the quality of
life for both prisoners and staff. Her engagement in the RESCALED
movement as a board member originates from this research.

The most decisive factor for a person serving a sentence in a prison, is the staff. The staff is literally the prisoners’ gatekeepers. Without help from staff, they are stuck. Prisoners are totally dependent on officers making arrangements for them, for example, getting in contact with public offices and so on. As a prison is staffed 24/7, staff work shifts, and one officer can be very different from another. Prisoners would very much like officers to communicate and make sure that their requests are passed on to the right person that can help. When prisoners do not get an answer, they would very much like to communicate with the officers and make them understand that getting an answer is utterly important.

Studies of Norwegian prisons show that prisoners and staff experience the quality of life to be better in small prison (less than 50 prisoners) than larger prison. One important factor for this result is that the relationships between prisoners and staff is better in small prisons. The atmosphere in these prisons is often calm and relaxed, and one may observe that prisoners and staff work together. For example, in order to make a Christmas Eve as nice as possible at a time where no-one wants to be in prison – neither prisoners nor staff – the best thing to do is to cooperate and make the best of it. Collectively, prisoners and officers decorate the wing and put tables together and arrange them nicely so everyone can eat together and enjoy each other’s company.

Qualified and well trained staff know how to use such occasions to build relationships with prisoners. They learn to know new prisoners in this way, and with the prisoners they already know, the relationship may grow stronger. The clue is to get the relationships “right”. A “right” relationship with prisoners differs, depending upon who these persons are. Without being able to explain explicitly what a right relationship with a specific prisoner is, a well trained and experienced officer would just know. However, a prison officer has to show that he or she can be trusted, and that the knowledge and skills they have can help and support the prisoner throughout the serving of the sentence. Honesty, sincerity, respect, and genuine interest in the person – the prisoners – is of vital importance in this respect. Besides of being a prison officer, a prison officer is fellow human being too.

In a small prison, the bureaucracy is easy to understand as there are few levels and few persons at each level. Prisoners understand quite fast who to turn in order to present their errands. The leader of the prison would most likely be an integrated part of the staff group and pay visits to the wings quite often. With the leader present at the wing, the prisoners may remind him or her of their application for, for example, prison leaves, and the leader may explain why the answer is delayed. Face-to-face communication reduces the change of misunderstanding and suspiciousness. Questions could be asked, and answers given right away to sort things out.

The prisons with the highest quality of life in our study, seemed to have at least one thing in common: an ideology or pedagogical model of human existence and behaviour. These prisons were Bastøy prison, which is a human ecological prison, and Leira prison where staff is trained in konsekvenspedagogikk, a social learning theory. We do not have much knowledge about this, but such a “platform” and shared understanding on how people exist and learn, seem to give a direction in the work of the staff, which the prisoners appreciate. This is something to explore further.